Aisella looked between them with the careful attention of soone tracking a conversation that had more layers than its surface. She didn’t say anything.
"What I’m trying to convey," Mireya said, looking directly at Elizabeth, "is that Kregg and Virella were fully cooperative!"
"Kregg gave Rex information, gave him the ring, and gave him a docunt with the Balance Keeper’s compact in it. And Rex killed them anyway."
"Both of them. After they had stopped fighting."
Elizabeth looked at Rex again, using the steady gaze she reserved for deciding whether to press a point.
"The Legion commanders," Rex said, "had personally overseen the capture of Apollo, Veylor, and one of your expedition mbers."
"Virella put stone spurs through Iris’s back in the chamber."
"Kregg has been running extraction operations against reincarnators for fourteen years." He paused. "They were not neutralized threats."
"They were operational commanders with active network connections who would have been reporting the canyon’s outco to Solmordia’s relay network within hours of leaving."
"Solmordia..." Elizabeth said. "That sounds familiar..."
"The kingdom the Balance Keeper operates from," Rex said. "Kregg gave the na, the general direction, the relay structure, and the compact docunt."
"All of that information has a ti window before the Balance Keeper’s monitoring detects the breach and adapts." He looked at Elizabeth. "Leaving them functional shortened that window to nothing."
Mireya said, "That is a justification, not an answer!"
"He killed people who had surrendered, and I’m telling you that happened."
"Mireya." It was Talyra who said it, not sharply, but with the particular directness of soone who had decided to say a thing and was saying it. "Rex ca into that canyon alone."
"Apollo was unconscious, Veylor was being carried, and you were there by yourself even though Rex told you to stay put, and now... you’re just being a burden for him by getting put to the ground." She paused. "Look at the bright side..."
"He manages to get all three of them out, and he gets the key as well."
"I know that," Mireya said. "And I’m not being a burden or anything...!"
"I just want to stay on Apollo’s side so that he doesn’t get hurt!"
"Do you?" Talyra said. "Because you’re standing here right now because of what he did in that canyon, and the version of this where Rex doesn’t go in is the version where you’re still down there with the Legion."
"That doesn’t make what he did right," Mireya said.
"I didn’t say that what he did was right," Talyra said. "I said you’re standing here."
Mireya looked at her and then looked at the ground and then looked back up. "I know he saved us."
"I’m not arguing with that, but...! I’m saying that what happened after that, to people who had stopped fighting, was wrong, and soone in this group should know about it."
"We hear you," Elizabeth said, her voice steady and devoid of any bias. "I’m taking note of what you’ve said."
"Noting..." Mireya repeated.
"There’s a difference between noting and dismissing," Elizabeth said. "I’ve noted what you said."
"I’ve also noted Rex’s account and the tactical context he’s described, so I don’t have sufficient information to draw a clean conclusion right now, and I’m not going to draw one." She looked at Mireya with a directness that was professional and not unkind.
"What I do know is that we have three people who need to reach Drevash before dark, and one of them is Apollo, and that is the priority right now."
Aisella had been quiet through this.
Now she said, softly, to Mireya, "Are you all right?"
Mireya looked at her. The question seed to have reached her from a direction she hadn’t been expecting, and for a mont the rigid set of her expression shifted into sothing less organized.
"I... don’t know," Mireya said.
"That’s a reasonable answer," Aisella said. "You took a direct hit, and you’ve been carrying a lot since the chamber."
She ca alongside Mireya and put a hand on her arm, not pressure, just contact. "Whatever happened in the canyon—and I believe you saw what you said you saw—you’re still here." That matters."
Mireya looked at Rex over Aisella’s shoulder.
Rex was not looking at her. He had turned toward Apollo and was checking his positioning against the carriage wall with the focused attention of soone doing a specific task.
Nerith had been standing slightly apart from the group through all of this, and Rex had been aware of her presence with the passive attention he maintained for the people closest to his position.
She hadn’t said anything during Mireya’s account. She was looking at him now, and the amber leaves were doing sothing that was between the deep-signal motion and the rapid oscillation he’d cataloged from the carriage, neither of them exactly, sothing that suggested she was processing information that didn’t fit neatly into any existing category.
He didn’t look at her directly. He filed the leaf motion and moved on.
"By the way... here’s the ring." He reached into his pocket and took out the ring and held it up briefly for Elizabeth’s benefit.
Elizabeth looked at it with the professional attention that was her natural mode. "That’s what Kregg used to paralyze all reincarnators, huh?" she said.
"Yeah," Rex said. "I took it."
He put it back in his pocket. "I’ll give it to you for analysis once we’re back in Aethelgard."
Elizabeth accepted this with a nod that communicated multiple things in sequence: acknowledgnt of the ring’s value, acceptance of the arrangent Rex had proposed, and a quiet ongoing process of adding what Rex had just done to the accumulating file of things she was categorizing about him began.
"The information Kregg gave you," Elizabeth said. "Solmordia, the relay structure, and the Balance Keeper."
"It’s all in the docunt," Rex said. "I’ll go through it with you in Aethelgard when there’s ti to map it properly."
"Good," Elizabeth said.
Mireya, who was still standing where Aisella had left her, said, "You’re just going to move on."
No one answered imdiately.
"He gave you useful information," Mireya said. "So it gets filed and discussed later, and that’s the end of it."
"Mireya," Alexander said.
"No," she said. "I’m not letting this go!"
"What he did was wrong, and the information doesn’t change what he did to get it."
"I agree with you," Alexander said.
Mireya looked at him.
"I agree that if what you’re describing happened, it was wrong," Alexander said. "I’m not saying it didn’t."
"I’m saying that I wasn’t there and I can’t verify it, and Rex’s account is different from yours, and without more information, I don’t know what to do with the disagreent except note it and move forward." He looked at her steadily. "That’s not dismissal."
"That’s honesty about what I can and can’t know."
Mireya pressed her lips together.
"He saved your life," Alexander said, quietly. "I’m not saying that ans he gets to do whatever he wants."
"I’m saying it’s part of the picture, and I can’t pretend it isn’t."
"I know he saved my life," Mireya said. "I’ve said that... yes, I know it, but that doesn’t make what happened afterward acceptable."
"No," Alexander said. "It doesn’t."
"But it ans that when I’m trying to figure out what Rex is, I have to hold both things at the sa ti, and right now I don’t have enough information to know which one is the bigger part of the answer." He paused. "Neither do you."
"Not yet."
Mireya looked at Rex one more ti. Rex gazed out at the approaching Drevash, wearing the patient expression of soone who had already determined the purpose of the carriage ride.
She didn’t say anything else.
"The Key," Elizabeth said.
"Oh~! It’s here, sugar plum~!" Alexander pulled out the key.
Alexander turned around, which proved to be a mistake at that mont. Rex had been closely tracking the specific geotry of his movent for the last forty ters, analyzing the angle of his arm, the position of the Key in his grip, and the loose, unguarded quality of his footwork.
This unguardedness stemd from soone who was exhausted and satisfied, having stopped paying attention to the physical positioning that would normally co naturally to him when fully alert.
’Here’s the second woman that will be on her knees for soon...’
Rex extended the telekinesis at the lowest possible output.
Just a fractional shift occurred. A tiny pressure was applied to the rear heel of Alexander’s boot at the mont his weight shifted.
This pressure was not enough to cause a fall, but it was sufficient to create a stumble—the kind that prompted a hand to open reflexively in an attempt to regain balance.
Alexander stumbled. "F-Fuck—"
The key slipped from his grasp.
It traveled three feet into the air and struck the ground at a precisely calculated angle, one that ensured the dinsional material made contact with the canyon stone at its most structurally vulnerable point.
The canyon stone was already imbued with earthen authority, so when it made contact, the Key broke.
CRACK!
The crack was sharp and unmistakable. Then, the Key shattered along the stress fracture, resulting in four separate pieces. The largest of these skidded across the ground and ca to a stop near Elizabeth’s foot.
’And her fate is sealed...’
Alexander stared at his empty hand, then shifted his gaze to the ground. His focus landed on an object on the ground, and his expression mirrored that of soone trying to make sense of a situation they cannot yet fully grasp.
Mireya made a sound. "A-Ahh...!"
Aisella covered her mouth with her hand.
Talyra looked at Rex. Rex was looking at the sky with the mild expression of soone watching the weather.
Nerith was looking at Rex. She had been looking at him since the stumble happened, with the specific attention of soone who has noticed a thing and is deciding what to do about having noticed it.
Rex didn’t look back.
’I win again...’
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